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Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

lyft.com

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Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#661

Post by wlesieutre »

berbec wrote: post #319
HumblyTossed wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... and still need to live in fear of surprise bankruptcy-level bills arriving if god forbid you collapse and need an emergency procedure at the closest out-of-network facility. I don't know why this isn't illegal. You can go from living comfortably to living in poverty even though you held up your end of the contract except for that last time when you were not even conscious.

Imagine this at mcdonalds: It'd like a burger OK, here it is. What is the charge? I'm not sure. I'll send you a bill in 2-32 weeks.

I know someone dealing with this shenanigans right now, they sent two bills, which he paid, and then figured it was all sorted.

Many months later, he finds out that they later sent two more bills to the address where he lived in middle school, never called him about it, and then referred them to debt collection because of course he hadn't paid them. He found out about this when the debts showed up on his credit monitoring.

Now they're denying that he gave them his current address, despite the fact that he has multiple other bills with earlier dates where the hospital has printed the correct address on them.

tldr: America's medical billing is an absurd shitshow

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#662

Post by electricviolet »

woeirua wrote: post #29

I suspect that California is going to backpedal on this pretty quickly. Uber and Lyft are popular. Going back to taxis is going to be very unpopular. IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."

A couple of years ago, the Quebec government introduced additional restrictions on ridesharing companies. Uber got up on their soapbox and said they were pulling out of Quebec. The government called their bluff and basically said "Okay, bye" and Uber backpedaled. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens here.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#663

Post by core-questions »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #607
bgorman wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you get to decide what a fair wage is, or what a positive force in the economy is? Taxis are an obsolete service, Lyft and Uber are overwhelmingly favored by customers and businesses.

Ok - so we can't afford to pay people for their work any more. We can't afford benefits. We can't afford unemployment. We can't afford to create an economy where people reliably earn enough to buy housing and pay for essentials. And this in one of the most prosperous economies in the world. Do you not understand that this is what you're arguing for? Do you also not understand that if you don't already have a huge pil…

> Ok - so we can't afford to pay people for their work any more

We can afford to pay people, but the problem here is that it's not just me paying you a bit of money to cover your gas, insurance, mechanics, and time; it's also me paying for tens of thousands of employees and cloud datacenters and all the rest to connect me to you. That's a lot of overhead, and it's duplicated by virtue of multiple companies being in the mix doing the same thing.

Also, it was never really supposed to be a career - it was supposed to be something you could do on your way to work to help subsidize your own commute. Making a career out of a side job is certainly one's own choice, and I don't want to get in the way of that, but... are people getting benefits and guaranteed hours for busking, or being a living statue? Are people guaranteed a certain minimum pay for their lemonade stand?

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#664

Post by mumblemumble »

lsiebert wrote: post #625
carlosdp wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot, that Lyft/Uber could allow the same flexibility if they wanted to. It's not that the law dictates this shift, it's that the economics do. Requiring full employment means you can hire less drivers. If you have less drivers, you need more control over when they drive in order to make sure when customers are looking for a ride, they can find one, hence shifts.

Basically this. As best I can tell, most of the flexibility Uber and Lyft want is the flexibility to pay people less and give them less benefits and prevent them from being able to unionize/organize effectively.

Assuming that what Lyft is saying about "4 out of 5 drivers don't support" is accurate, that would seem to imply that this is also about giving flexibility to all the people who are only driving 5 hours a week to pick up some spare pocket change. Which is the model for how this would mostly work that is invoked by the word "rideshare."

I do see a potential problem here of the interests of people who do this as their job being unnecessarily put into direct conflict with the interests of people who don't do this as their job.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#665

Post by mLuby »

dmode wrote: post #231

I dislike Uber and Lyft's practices as much as the next guy. But I also believe AB5 is a terrible bill and will be voting in November to exempt Uber and Lyft from AB5. AB5 was written to impose a 20th century employment model to a 21st century situation. As such, the bill is distorted that it carve out hundreds of exemptions to musicians, freelancers, journalists, doctors, hair stylists and so on and so forth. A bill…

> A bill that has to rely primarily on exemptions is no bill at all.

Exemptions are a leading indicator of ineptness or corruption.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#666

Post by munk-a »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #638
cgriswald wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a BOFH, we had a guy working the night shift who would always be a little slow at getting processing done in time for the rest of corporate to show up and need their data. It was odd but I don’t remember anyone looking into it. Until one time there was a problem with one of the jobs (which meant other jobs could not be run) and no one had their data in the morning. He was asked why he didn’t contact one of…

Good for him for making the most of shitty situation.

I'm a bit more hesitant to cheer on fraud.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#668

Post by anigbrowl »

mcguire wrote: post #437

" As employees they would have to work set schedules and shifts, would not be able to work for multiple app-based companies and would have reduced earning potential — and many jobs would actually be eliminated. " ( https://prop22facts.com/lyft/ ) Is that something mandated by California? As far as I know, everywhere else I've been, work-schedules and anti-moonlighting are restrictions placed by the employer, not the…

Yeah, they're just saying that these are the conditions they'd choose to impose and hoping people will believe they're mandated by the state. I see this kind of bait and switch a lot.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#669

Post by pmoriarty »

nodesocket wrote: post #401
woeirua wrote: post #29

I suspect that California is going to backpedal on this pretty quickly. Uber and Lyft are popular. Going back to taxis is going to be very unpopular. IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."

Drivers choose to make their living with Lyft and Uber. California is starting to feel the repercussions of their far left policies. It hurts consumers (fare prices rise), stifles innovation, pushes entrepreneurs out of the state, and the irony is it ended up hurting the drivers.

California's far left policies?

When did California eliminate private property? When did it hand over the means of production to the proletariat?

Last I checked, capitalism was alive and well in California, which is the dearly beloved home of the most successful capitalist entities and richest people on the planet.

If California's policies really were far left, all those companies would be owned and run by their workers, and no one would be richer than anyone else.

But that's not California, is it?

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#670

Post by JamesBarney »

lefrenchy wrote: post #518
JamesBarney wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately many gig workers don't have the privilege. I'm assuming here but you probably had another job and benefits. There are many workers who don't, and are turning to Uber or Lyft just to put food on the table and are being forced into working without paid vacation, sick leave, or benefits simply because they have no other options. These drivers who can't put food on the table without Uber(which I've person…

> No one is forcing them to do anything. They not only get to decide if they want to work, but how much, and when. No they don't.. Their material conditions dictate how much they need to work to meet their basic needs (food, utilities, rent). You're assuming that people who are living paycheck to paycheck, who are backed against a wall, have the option to pick and choose if, when, and how much they work. The people i…

Sorry I meant no one is forcing them to work for Lyft/Uber. Everyone who decided to work for Lyft and Uber because it made their life better. Would they have made that same choice if they had a trust fund that met all their basic needs? Probably not.

> This is entirely anecdotal, on top of the fact that "raising children" or "having a medical condition" should not be an excuse to be denied economic stability and benefits.

Yes I'm using anecdotes from talking with Uber drivers, which isn't as good as a study. But it is better than what you are doing which is speculating. Have you had the experience that almost all of your Uber drivers were hoping for full time employment, with a boss, and working on a set schedule?

This bill will completely change what a job looks like for Uber and Lyft. People choose to work for Uber and Lyft for the flexibility that accommodates different life circumstances not for the pay. This bill will destroy that flexibility, it will improve the lives of a small % of Uber and Lyft's drivers who want to work full time and get benefits from Lyft and Uber. But this will worsen the lives of everyone who works there precisely because of the flexibility.

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